Ho Chi Lightning Fish

Well its been the month of the lightning storm. No rain mind you, just vast blinding tears through the sky after a days build up of heat. A couple of weeks ago I witnessed the biggest lightning storm I have ever seen. It was right above us and was constant. Every now and then a cracking bolt would lance the earth and blind my eyes as it rolled across the sky. Is there anything more awe inspiring, more powerful or blinding than lightning. It really makes you feel truly meek and perishable.  We have just been through a little mini heat wave. It was undies off and lots of dips in the ocean as temperatures went into the forties. Poor Jules would walk into the house-after a day of school like a little molten lava rock. Air con on, fan on, douse her with water and a nice cold drink and she was ready to brave the elements again. I am looking forward to seeing how the kiwis handle the heat straight out of winter.

I love the heat. I love never having to wear a sweat shirt, or wondering if it is going to rain. I have realized its not the rain I'm scared of its the wet and cold. Here if it rains you get wet then you dry out in a few minutes. The Vietnamese are like human barometers. I am often driving and they are on the side of the road putting on their raincoats in perfect blue sky weather. Five minutes later its pouring down rats and dogs.

Played my weekly soccer game last night and have my weekly sore legs today. I have realized I am no spring chicken anymore. I can hold my own with the 26 year olds here during the match but its the next day that I feel old. I don't want to stop playing but I am slowly accumulating niggles, sprains and pains. Could be about time I play goalie.

So we found a large fish in our pond. I call him Ho Chi Fish. We have been living here for a year and I had never once seen him. There are concerns it is actually a government spy or that it was planted by the neighbours to eat all my small fish, fatten him and then collect for eating. But it seems that this is where he lives. The landlord did clear a whole lot of pond weed recently so he has no where to hide now. I don't want to tell any of the neighbours otherwise he may well end up in a Vietnamese frying pan. I am hoping he will bred with our local yard rat that is about the same size as a small dog. I would like to see a ratfish.

Its children's day tomorrow. Lots of kids will be going nuts through the streets. Our street is being closed off and presents distributed. This last week there has been school holidays and I often get a gaggle of kids coming in the house to observe the weird foreign dude with his gadgets. The kids here are wide eyed and cute. They find us so interesting and even the parents point at us and tell their kids to wave and say hello. The little girl across the way is starting to learn english and yells out Hello, Xin Chao, Dam Biet, Goodbye every time we go out our gate. She is like a 2 year old watchdog. Families here are very close. Everyone has kids here in their mid twenties. Jules and I are often scolded for being too old without kids. The lady in the market last week got asked if she was pregnant (never sits well) When she said no. the woman pointed at me and said " too old" The women here are really baby making machines. They don't drink, smoke or eat fast food. They are preened to breed from an early age and they follow strong ideals about when this should happen and how their bodies should be kept. I think there are big changes coming in the next ten years with access to the internet and foreign TV channels.

A friend and I are currently starting up a new online tourist guide to Hoi An. www.inhoian.com. It is going to take a while but we found there was no attractive great functioning websites for Hoi An and with 2.8 million visitors each year to a place no bigger than Huntly, we decided there was a great opportunity. To begin with we are concentrating on functionality, appearance and optimization but further down the track we would like to make some money once we start getting a lot of visitors. There are many opportunities here if you have the patience and time to live here, learn about Da Nang as it grows rapidly. They are moulding this place into a huge city and in ten years I dare say I will not recognize it. With the growth comes good and bad things. Better infrastructure, rubbish collections are great but beach sky scrapers and resorts are not. It is however progress in a country that has been at war and stifled for 100 years so I hope they power forward grow, help their people without  destroying the beautiful surroundings. If history has any influence then I fear for this place.

So its Friday and happy hour in 6 hours so I must prepare. Its amazing how a two for one special still draws in the punters when beers are only a dollar. Everyone loves free drinks I guess.

Over and Out

Shann and Jules

Dragon Bridge and a Big Cock

It has been a while since my last blog. This is mainly to do with my two month working holiday, wedding extravaganza. It was great to see everyone again but what does become very apparent is that two months is still a very short space of time to catch up with everyone.

I guess the underlying  highlight about the trip back home, the reason why everyone was so happy and why everyones teeth looked so white, was the weather. An official drought was in action, a far cry from the total washout the summer before provided. Farmers aside, it is truly remarkable, the pure joy that the sun brings out in people. Not just the added extra vitamin count but the share number of days where one can plan a picnic or outdoor gathering where you don't have to invite a pair of animals and that annoying weather doomsayer with the ark. It was evident that I had acclimatized to the South East Asian heat because I found myself putting on a sweat shirt when the kiwis looked like they were about to collapse in a sweaty mess. In NZ you can stand on the edge of a shadow in a pair of speedos, plastered in sun cream, sweating profusely. Take a sideways step into the shade and you practically need a puffer jacket to survive. The air has a freshness about it. You can almost taste the purity when you step out of the airport.

So I returned to Da Nang at the end of rainy season that never eventuated. It was about 30C, a nice time of year to be in Da Nang. I missed this place and I felt like it had missed me too.

Jules had decided to ignore the power bill while we were away. She deduced that there was no way the Vietnamese authorities would turn off the electricity to a house with very important western people living there. We found out this theory was wrong at 7am. Thirty four hours later and a short stint at a hotel we got our aircon back.

We have a new neighbour, he's a rooster called Ramsey. Basically he's a big cock. He is a cock that has no concept of time or space so he chooses to crow at all times to cover all bases. I have a hate hate relationship with Ramsey and made a hint to the landlord that Ramsey was possibly an undesirable character in our neighbourhood. My landlord told me that their three roosters were also a little noisy too!. So now Ramsey and the neighbours that he flats with are getting acquainted to bands such as the Cancer Bats, Faith No More and The Pixies on a daily basis at a volume that may make Ramsey think about his positioning on our back doorsteps. I have also discreetly made enquiries into purchasing some rohypnol laced bird seed in case more persuasive methods need to be introduced.

Da Nang opened a couple new bridges last week. One is a beautiful suspension bridge which looks amazing at night with all its neon glowing wires. The other bridge breathes fire! I kid you not. It is the longest Dragon Bridge in the world with a head that breathes fire. I am not sure how often it will perform this or if it was just an opening day stunt but it sure got the Vietnamese out on opening day. Da Nang is actually looking pretty damn cosmopolitan these days with several high rises sprouting up and the four very different illuminated bridges crossing to the beach.

This weekend Jules and I got on our motorbike and head into the hills. Our plan was to make our way up the Ho Chi Minh trail to Hue but got as far as a small town called Prao and was told that the 160 km ride across the mountains was a suicide mission without a spare tyre. This was highlighted when we turned around and made our way back over the mountains to Da Nang, only to get a flat tyre. Luckily we were only a few hundred metres away from a group of houses. Just when the sweat was starting to drip from my earlobes and the sun was at its highest, we found this amazing family that spoke no Vietnamese let alone English. They fixed our wheel while entertaining Julia and the whole time with the biggest smile on their faces. If I did not already think that the Vietnamese were the friendliest people in the world, this weekend highlighted it. We had a swim with some local kids in their self made swimming hole. We had kids running and waving at us down the streets. We stopped to eat freshly picked pineapple and cruised around the dusty heat soaked roads through beautiful mountain passes. It is amazing how little you need to enjoy life here.

So as Ramsey reminds me that it is 4: 48pm I will ease into my Sunday evening with a wine and thoughts of this coming week. We have old friends arriving back in Da Nang and new friends we want to get better acquainted with. Life is filling fast with new adventures.

Christmas Cruising, Night Visits and Wedding Balls

It was my first Asian Christmas and what a doozy. The December build up was like a tinsel nightmare from the seventies. The malls were playing jingle bells in Vietnamese, in the usual 10,000 decibels, little kids were going to school in mini santa getups and a couple of the resorts dragged out their choir act, summer mulled wine and a handful of Christmas spring rolls. For me a summer Christmas was the norm but you could see the Americans freaking out, not knowing whether to sunbathe or deck the halls.

We participated in the annual Santa Booze cruise. Three buses filled with scary westerners, thrusting their seasonal drunkenness on Vietnamese date night. The bewildered looks we got when we flash mobbed a local restaurant singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was priceless. I went as the Grinch in full face paint and met a bunch of new people who still have no idea what I look like.

Julia and I had some unexpected night time visitors just before Christmas. After a small soiree at our house we were rudely awakened in our bedroom at 2am by a man and his torch. I wanted to let it slide but Jules's hysteria kind of snapped me out of my drunken slumber only to find 5 more men in our lounge with large batons. We had accidentally left our motorbike outside and our door unlocked which we now know gets you a visit from the neighborhood watchmen. Julia said I was a little cold towards them, I think they were lucky not to get kneecapped, looking like menacing triads from an asian crime film.

We had three School Christmas functions to attend to in December. The Green Shoots Kindy Fair, the Green Shoots 'Lion King' Production, which I did the face painting for. And The SIS school charity fair which again I was the local ' I wanna be a princess' face painter.  I Did actually con one girl into letting me paint her as a Saprano.

On December 20th  we were off to Myanmar which I am going to have to write a whole Blog post about because it was truly a spectacular experience and one that a few lines will not do justice.

So now we are back in Da Nang and about to embark on a long journey home. I will miss Vietnam but when I return the weather should be heating up again. It is a weird sight watching thousands of people fanging around in snow gear while I am still in shorts and a tee shirt. It is a bone chilling 22C today so time to get out those thermals.

This year is the year of the wedding. I cannot wait until July when Jules and I tie the knot. By the time July rolls around it is going to be ball sweatingly hot.  Speaking of weddings and balls, I went to a lovely wedding last weekend and as I was leaving I popped into the loo to water the horse when the MC parked up next to me and started asking some incoherent Vietnamese questions while pointing at me todger. I quickly decided that my personal space was getting violated and made a move to the door when he decided to give me the old Christmas hold (A handful of nuts) Its amazing how quickly someone can become so inappropriate. I gave him the international sign for 'backup or I will break your face' repeated the word 'no' a few times until he was saying it back to me and then left MC Light loafers to ponder his mistake. I wonder if that's his usual weekend gig?

So 4 more days and I will be in NZ. Excited to see friends and family, weddings, festivals, birthdays and Kiwi summer magic, bring it on. OK must make a move. I have a pot of boiling water on the stove and a nest of fire ants to destroy.

Shann

My Beyonce, Kiwis and Halloweenie.

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So somehow November has reared his little mausctached face and we see ourselves once again hurtling towards Santa time, which is kind of like Hammertime just with different pants. So I seemed to have got my self engaged to a Takapuna hotty. It was relatively easy, I just snuck up behind her while she was in the water. Thrust a ring in her face and scared the bejesus out of her. Honestly I was glad I was in the water because I might of popped a little wee when she said yes. Although we have started planning for the wedding I do have to remind Jules when she gets a little unruly, that the engagement is but a probational period, placed to test her good wifey skills.

We had some Vietnamesey Visitors last month. A quintuplet of excitement, a gaggle of Kiwis with a little aussie thrown in the mix. It was great to show them around our new home while digesting tasty morsels  and soaking ourselves in Larue Lager. It was truly O for orsome and I cannot wait until next July when our next visitors arrive.

On a sad note we lost one of our family members last month. Our little ‘Nooky’ went out one night and never came home. Maybe she found a better home, maybe she was sick of her brother getting all the food…..who knows. Someone suggested she may have been eaten but we all know that know one likes eating ginger…..cats.

Had my biggest Halloween week in a while. Started off painting little kids faces at Jules’s school, then painted my face and taught art at Green shoots while painting the kids faces there, then finished the night painting Jules and Kathy’s faces before we went to 17 Saloon Halloween extravaganza. After that I painted no more faces.

I am two days away from finishing my Mural at the hospital. I have met a lot of cool people there, doctors, nurses, volunteers and little kids. I am really happy with how it has turned out and cant wait to see the opening of the floor after Christmas.

Last week Jules and I went on a five day trip to Dalat. We went on a couple of day trips, climbed a mountain in jandels, ate some crickets, ate my weight in cake, ate the thinnest pizza in the world. Actually the only thing I didn’t eat was a ginger….cat.  We loved Dalat, with it’s cool mountain air and art Deco houses. Jules dressed like an Eskimo the whole time. I fear the Da Nang climate may have stifled her ability to live anywhere cold again.

So it is now the middle of November and rainy season still has not really arrived. Apparantly this time last year some of the local fish moved into the 10^th floor of the Mecure because it was so wet.

Lastly I have to mention an alarming trend that has suddenly burst onto the scene here in Vietnam. Pyjamas have become popular day wear for the old wrinkly men. You know those light blue distinguished men’s jim jams with a top pocket and dark rimmed cuffs. Granted they are a good looking night garment but I cannot figure out if the men don’t know if they are pyjamas or they get out of bed in the morning, look at their wardrobe and decide that what they are already wearing trumps anything else they have. I feel the next logical step is that it will catch on with the kids then we will all be dancing Gangnam Style in our pyjamas at the local RSA. Until next time peeps, over and out.

Shann

Dora the terrorist and my 30 year old baby

Well I am back in the sweaty bosom of Da Nang and someone has casually turned on the big tap in the sky. No catastrophes yet, villages swept away or deathly mudslides. Its just a casual sprinkling here and there, cooling down the air while the mosquito’s hump around in their trillions multiplying ready for the good stuff. Cunning as ever, they stop at nothing to get a piece of you. I saw a couple of mozzies the other day having sex in full view of everyone. Naturally I stopped to take a couple of photos while half a dozen accomplices ravished the back of my knees.

It was good to be back in New Zealand for three weeks. The weather gods were pleasant enough and as I went about my work I tried desperately to stuff as many pies, cakes and burgers into my mouth preparing again for noodlegeddon.  Hell you could have wrapped turd in a piece of pastry and I would have given it ago. Funnily enough when I returned yesterday all I wanted was a bowl of beef noodles.

I had a few airport mishaps, moans and misfortunes. I believe it all started at Auckland Airport when at 7am a man on a loud speaker bellowed out “ would the owner of a pink Dora the Explorer bag please collect it from gate 16”. A cunning ploy by a 3-year-old child was once again thwarted. I was delayed 5 hours at Saigon airport. I am not sure if you have been to Saigon airport, there is not a lot to do. So instead of racing ants on the tiled floor I popped over the road to the local cinema to listen to Christmas carols? Then watch a shitty movie. At least the seats were comfy. My biggest moan was on the way over to NZ. Jetstar, jetstar, jetstar……..what can I say. May your entire crew get diarrhea on a plane full of Muslims. I had my credit cards stolen a couple weeks before I left Vietnam. When I went to order some food on my 10-hour flight home, I was refused, as they would not take cash due to their credit card only policy. Not even when I spoke to their robotic manager pleading my case would they budge. 

So I went hungry for 14 hours. Incredible.

The Gift Fair went well for me considering the dire state of the retail sector. I walked away pretty pleased and the samples that I had made in Vietnam were well received.  There seemed to be this horrible inevitability hanging in the air in NZ of more expected price hikes, people telling me that living costs just keep rising with no apparent wage rises in sight. To be honest nothing shocked me more than a nine-dollar beer. After a quick calculation on my abacus I realized that I could buy 40 glasses of beer for that here in Vietnam. Someone is having a laugh.

So what now? Well today I start my first class at my new teaching job. Once a week for two hours at a local expat school teaching art. I am dressed and ready to go but feel a little underdressed in my shorts and tee shirt. Art teachers should drape them selves in white silk or wear some kind of crazy home made suit pant with a receding ponytail and custom painted specs. Maybe that will come with time but for now my craziness will lay hidden on my aeroplane undies. So we are designing and painting a environmentally themed mural on the whole front of the school.  My main objective at this point is to keep all of the children alive and not to swear in class.

I have a behemoth of a mural to complete at the local hospital and I have more new products to design for Tantrum Design in the New Year. I bought my surfboard over so hopefully a little bit of surfing will take place, we have visitors coming to stay soon and I have cats to get spade (not related). It is all go I tell you.

What I did realize as I entered Da nang airport was I was glad to be back and that home, for now, is definitely in Vietnam. There is still a lot to see and do and life is pretty unpredictable which is how I like it.

Shann 

Wedding Bells and Sweaty Chicken Wings

The Olympics are on and ironically they seem to make me a little on the lazy side. I mean there is nothing more satisfying than laying on the couch in a horizontal position that is bordering on a backwards incline, feeding large amounts of brightly coloured food into your face while watching a group of athletes physically exert themselves to near death. It just makes me want to recline even more horizontally. I now find myself going to bed in the early hours of the morning, which inevitably makes me even more tired, which spirals me into another couch binge Olympic session. It’s a perpetual laziness trap that will not finish until the Olympics do.

So our last few weeks have been dominated by the wedding we attended a couple weeks back in Hue. We were lucky enough to be invited by Hieu and Huong to the ceremonies as well as the reception. It was a beautiful and somewhat hot affair. For the first time in six months I found myself wearing a pair of strides, socks and shoes and a shirt. In a somewhat cruel twist of fate the mercury decided to reach 40C at the pre wedding celebrations. So after we climbed off La Fonda the Honda and our one-hour hot air ride my body decided to melt. It just became one big self-destructing circle of sweat. First the small dot of sweat began on my front and this made me nervous so I sweat more. Soon the sweat dot turned into a man boob sweat and then just when I thought I had a handle on it my girlfriend tells me that my back resembled a piece of glad wrap in a bathtub. But luckily we had beer. Beer in abundance with large slabs of ice in it. There was a 2000 decibel Karaoke machine where Jules sung a lovely rendition of ‘Time After Time’ There was good eating and a lot of toasting. Mot, Hai, Bad, Yo!!!!! (1, 2, 3, cheers) is heard everywhere and just as things got going everyone jumped out of their seats and said goodbye. That’s it. The MC said it’s over so we were off again.

The wedding the next day started at 6am at Hieu’s house. A long procession of family members took a bus to Huongs house where a ceremony took place, some adornment of jewels and gifting of wedding paraphernalia. Then everyone on the bus again back to Hieu’s where a similar ceremony was performed. Then just as it started to heat up and the tummy started to rumble the whole family got on the buses again and head off to the reception. It is hard to sum up everything in a few words. I will just say this; Jules and I were made to feel like celebrities. We were welcomed into homes and then looked after and paraded around by both families. English was of little use so there was a lot of gesturing and smiling. It really was a great day.

Jules and I have now started Vietnamese lessons and I have to come to the conclusion that it cannot possibly be a real language. I think most of the time they are just making stuff up. I am going to keep trying. Jules seems to be getting a handle on this hoax better than me, but once I start making up my own words we’ll see who has the last laugh.

The only real fast food in Da Nang unless you count agile rats is KFC. And before you say, ha ha isn’t it KFD………no! I actually prefer it to NZ’s Kentucky Fried equivalent. Firstly uniformed KFC representatives greet you at the door. You order and it costs around $5 for a meal. The meal comes with cutlery on a plate with a glass full of cold Pepsi. Unfortunately the burgers still resemble a promiscuous camel’s vagina but boy can you taste the chicken. Then there are the chicken pieces. A huge breast of chicken heavily coated in the colonel’s secret herbs and spices making it clear that Vietnamese chickens are obviously a little more endowed than their woman. Do I miss fast food, yes I do, and on return to NZ in just over 2 weeks I shall be revisiting all that Auckland greasy food chains have to offer.

Before I come back could I please order some warm weather. I am not sure if I can handle temperatures 35C colder than I am currently experiencing.

Cheers

Shann

Charity Kittens and Expeditions

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been a solid 3 weeks since my last blog and I am feeling a weeny bit naughty.

You may ask, Shann, why the religious prelude? Well my heathen friends, Julia and I have joined arms with a church group here in Da Nang and we are rocking our souls in the bosom of Abraham. One of our goals while we were here was to get on the charity bandwagon and spread the love. We found this great organisation who have been in Da Nang for 14 years and who receive funding from church groups in Australia. Before you say “Hallelujah brother and praise the Lord” with lots of frankincense, Jules and I are just pitching in where we can, which will entail a hospital mural in the children’s ward, helping with the Operation Heartbeat program which gives heart operations to kids in need and hopefully a trip out into the wops where we will distribute piglets and other fairy tale like animals.

Speaking of animals, Jules and I have kittens. After I sent the last one to a watery grave I thought it was only fair to try again. We thought we had two 3-week-old sisters but after a trip to the vet today and a wee bit of feline fondling we actually have a brother and sister called Sticky and Nooky. They give us great joy by performing circus tricks most of the day and best of all they toilet trained themselves in one day. Took them for their shots today. Two shots each and a vet consultation in what seemed to be the lounge of someone’s house set us back $5.

Yesterday we took the day off and went on a motorbike excursion over the hills and far away. We swam on a deserted beach in crystal blue waters, rode over mountainous like mountains and found the secretive Elephant Springs which hundreds of Vietnamese had also found. Luckily because of our overall sweatiness we were given our own private swimming hole and relaxing waterfall to ponder in. The day ended with a sunset motorbike gallivant back over the mountains and a  ‘dirty chicken’ dinner with friends. There is nothing more satisfying than BBQ chicken and beer.

Have not really spoken in depth about the public toilet situation here in Da Nang.  It’s somewhat of a lottery in each establishment.  It varies from a proper toilet to a hole in the ground to a floor and two bricks (Jules’s personal favourite). A slightly sloping slab of sneaky cement distributes your wees nicely but we have yet to experiment with the more weighty number two extract mainly due to a lack of wiping material or any kind of high powered sprinkler system. It was about 45 C in our upstairs toilet the other day. Not the best place to be during ones early morning coffee laxative rampage. It’s like piping chocolate mousse infused with honey in a foreign sauna. I am getting somewhat used to the smells. No longer does a ride through the fishing village feel a slap in the face with a wet fish fart. Julia actually whiffed fondly at the sulphur smell protruding from a building site the other day. We seem to be fitting in.

I leave you finally with a new game I have invented. It’s called ‘man pissing’. There is an amazingly sophisticated game in NZ called ‘Horse’. I don’t have the time to explain all the rules but when you are driving along and you see a horse you yell out ‘Horse’ ………actually that’s all the rules. Well substitute a man pissing with a horse and you have a new game. Bonus point if he’s got a motorbike helmet on.

So I must scoot into town now and pick up my beautiful girlfriend (who is not impressed with all the talk of excretion) on the back of Lafonda the love Honda. Until next time.

Shann